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October 2: Bombing Parisian Synagogues
Seven synagogues in Paris (some sources say six) were bombed by Nazi sympathizers, authorized by the Gestapo, on this date in 1941. Jews in Paris were also ordered to surrender all bicycles, telephones, and radios. Two months later, 750 Jews were arrested and the community was fined one billion francs for alleged responsibility for resistance activities. By the end of the year, Jews were forbidden to leave the city or change their addresses. Deportations began by March, 1942. By the end of World War II, 77,000 out of 350,000 French Jews were dead.
The Nazis “acted only when, at the highest level, Jewry had been forcefully designated as the culpable incendiary in Europe, one which must definitively disappear from Europe.” —Reinhard Heydrich
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